The 2006–07 UEFA Champions League was the 15th season of
UEFA
Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs f ...
's premier European club
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
tournament, the
UEFA Champions League
The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...
, since it was rebranded from the European Cup, and the 52nd season overall.
The final
Final, Finals or The Final may refer to:
*Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event
** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...
was contested by
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
and
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
on 23 May 2007. Beforehand, the match was billed as a repeat of the
2005 final, the only difference being that the 2007 final was to be played at the
Olympic Stadium
''Olympic Stadium'' is the name usually given to the main stadium of an Olympic Games. An Olympic stadium is the site of the opening and closing ceremonies. Many, though not all, of these venues actually contain the words ''Olympic Stadium'' as ...
in
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
,
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
. Milan won the match 2–1 to claim their seventh European Cup, with both goals coming from
Filippo Inzaghi.
Dirk Kuyt scored for Liverpool.
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
were the defending champions, but were eliminated by Liverpool in the first knockout round.
Qualification
A total of 73 teams from 49 UEFA member associations participated in the 2006–07 UEFA Champions League. Liechtenstein (who don't have their own domestic league) as well as lowest-ranked Andorra and San Marino are not participating. Also wasn't admitted Montenegro, which didn't become UEFA member until January 2007. Each association enters a certain number of clubs to the Champions League based on its league
coefficient
In mathematics, a coefficient is a multiplicative factor in some term of a polynomial, a series, or an expression; it is usually a number, but may be any expression (including variables such as , and ). When the coefficients are themselves var ...
, which takes into account the performance of its clubs in European competitions from 2000–01 to 2004–05; associations with a higher league coefficients may enter more clubs than associations with a lower league coefficient, but no association may enter more than four teams. Italy's representatives were decided based on the revised table following the
match-fixing scandal which saw
Juventus
Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional Association football, football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football leagu ...
relegated to
Serie B
The Serie B (), currently named Serie Balkrishna Industries, BKT for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It has been operating for over ninety years since the 1929–30 ...
after winning the league the previous season.
*Associations 1–3 each have four teams qualify.
*Associations 4–6 each have three teams qualify.
*Associations 7–15 each have two teams qualify.
*Associations 16–50 (except Liechtenstein) each have one team qualify.
Association ranking
For the 2006–07 UEFA Champions League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2006
UEFA country coefficient
In European football, the UEFA coefficients are statistics based in weighted arithmetic means used for ranking and seeding teams in club and international competitions. Introduced in 1979 for men's football tournaments, and after applied in wome ...
s, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2001–02 to 2005–06.
Distribution
Since the title holders (
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
) qualified for the Champions League group stage through their domestic league, the group stage spot reserved for the title holders is vacated, and the following changes to the default access list are made:
*The champions of association 10 (Scotland) are promoted from the third qualifying round to the group stage.
*The champions of association 16 (Israel) are promoted from the second qualifying round to the third qualifying round.
*The champions of associations 26 and 27 (Sweden and Slovakia) are promoted from the first qualifying round to the second qualifying round.
Teams
;Notes
Round and draw dates
The schedule of the competition is as follows (all draws are held at UEFA headquarters in
Nyon
Nyon (; outdated German: or ; outdated Italian: , ) is a municipality in Nyon District in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It is located some 25 kilometers north east of Geneva's city centre, and since the 1970s it has become part of the Ge ...
,
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
, unless stated otherwise).
Qualifying rounds
First qualifying round
The first legs were played on 11 and 12 July 2006, with the second legs on 18 and 19 July.
Second qualifying round
The first legs were played on 25 and 26 July 2006, with the second legs on 1 and 2 August.
Third qualifying round
The first legs were played on 8 and 9 August 2006, with the second legs on 22 and 23 August.
The teams eliminated in this round qualified for the first round of the
UEFA Cup
A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store Solid, solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, porcela ...
.
* Due to the
armed conflict
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular ...
going on in Israel, UEFA decided that no European matches could be staged in the country until further notice. The match was played at
Lobanovsky Dynamo Stadium
The Stadion Dynamo imeni Valeria Lobanovskoho is a multi-functional stadium in Kyiv, Ukraine that is modified for football use only.
It is the home stadium of FC Dynamo Kyiv yet not the main stadium, for which Dynamo uses the bigger NSC Ol ...
in
Kyiv
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
, Ukraine.
Group stage
The draw for this round was held on 24 August 2006 in
Monaco
Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...
. The first matches were played on 12 September 2006, and the stage concluded on 6 December.
The top two teams in each group advanced to the knockout stage, and the third-placed teams entered the round of 32 of the UEFA Cup. Based on paragraph 4.05 in the UEFA regulations for the current season, if two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied to determine the rankings:
# higher number of points obtained in the group matches played among the teams in question;
# superior goal difference from the group matches played among the teams in question;
# higher number of goals scored away from home in the group matches played among the teams in question;
# superior goal difference from all group matches played;
# higher number of goals scored in all group matches played;
# higher number of coefficient points accumulated by the club in question, as well as its association, over the previous five seasons.
Levski Sofia
Levski Sofia ( bg, Левски София) is a Bulgarian professional association football club based in Sofia, which competes in the First League, the top division of the Bulgarian football league system. The club was founded on 24 May 1914 ...
and
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
made their debut appearance in the group stage.
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Group E
Group F
Group G
Group H
Knockout stage
All knockout rounds are two-legged, except for the final. In the event of aggregate scores being equal after normal time in the second leg, the winning team will be that which scored more goals on their away leg: if the scores in the two matches were identical, extra time is played. The
away goals rule
The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaker, tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the ...
also applies if scores are equal at the end of extra time. If there are no goals scored in extra time, the tie is decided on a penalty shoot out.
Bracket
Round of 16
The draw for the first knockout round of the competition took place on 15 December 2006 in
Nyon
Nyon (; outdated German: or ; outdated Italian: , ) is a municipality in Nyon District in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It is located some 25 kilometers north east of Geneva's city centre, and since the 1970s it has become part of the Ge ...
, Switzerland. The team first out of the hat in each tie plays the first leg of their tie at home, and the second leg away. This team is denoted as "Team #1" below.
On 8 February 2007, the Italian Government announced that
San Siro
Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, commonly known as San Siro, is a football stadium in the San Siro district of Milan, Italy, which is the home of A.C. Milan and Inter Milan. It has a seating capacity of 80,018, making it one of the largest stadiums in ...
Stadium in
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
was unsafe for spectators in light of
riots that took place during and following an Italian Serie A match in Sicily. As a result, the venues of the first leg of the Inter-Valencia tie scheduled for 21 February and the second leg of the Celtic-Milan tie scheduled for 7 March were thrown into doubt. Various proposals and offers of the use of stadia outside Italy were made, but it was finally agreed that the Inter-Valencia tie would be played at the San Siro with a reduced capacity of 36,000. After further work at the San Siro, Italian authorities and UEFA announced that the second leg of Celtic-Milan would go ahead at the stadium, at its full capacity of 85,700. 4,500 seats were reserved for Celtic supporters.
The first legs were played on 20 and 21 February 2007, with the second legs on 6 and 7 March.
Quarter-finals
The draw for the final stages, including the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final, was held on Friday, 9 March 2007 in
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
, Greece. The draw was conducted by ''ad interim'' UEFA CEO
Gianni Infantino
Giovanni Vincenzo Infantino (; born 23 March 1970) is a Swiss football administrator with Italian citizenship and the current president of FIFA. He was elected President of FIFA during the 2016 FIFA Extraordinary Congress in February 2016. H ...
, assisted by
Friedrich Stickler
Friedrich Stickler (born 18 April 1949, in Vienna) is an Austrian manager and football administrator. He is Deputy Director General of the Austrian lotteries and board member of the Austrian Sports Aid. Stickler is the former president of Austria ...
, chairman of the UEFA Club Competitions Committee.
Theodoros Zagorakis
Theodoros Zagorakis ( el, Θεόδωρος Ζαγοράκης ; born 27 October 1971) is a Greek politician and former professional footballer who played as a midfielder. He was the captain of Greece that won UEFA Euro 2004, and was also presid ...
, the captain of Greece in
Euro 2004
The 2004 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2004, was the 12th edition of the UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial football competition contested by the men's national teams of UEFA member associations. The ...
, was appointed ambassador for the final.
The first legs were played on 3 and 4 April, and the second legs were played on 10 and 11 April 2007.
Semi-finals
The first legs were played on 24 and 25 April, with the second legs on 1 and 2 May 2007.
Final
The Final took place on 23 May 2007 at the
Olympic Stadium
''Olympic Stadium'' is the name usually given to the main stadium of an Olympic Games. An Olympic stadium is the site of the opening and closing ceremonies. Many, though not all, of these venues actually contain the words ''Olympic Stadium'' as ...
in Athens, Greece. Unlike the other knockout rounds, the final was played over just one match, with extra time in case of a draw after 90 minutes. If the teams were still level following extra time, a
penalty shootout
The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...
would have determined the winner.
Milan scored first through Filippo Inzaghi just before half time. Inzaghi scored again in the 82nd minute, before Dirk Kuyt scored a late consolation goal a minute before full-time.
Milan went on to represent Europe at the
2007 FIFA Club World Cup.
2006–07 UEFA Club Football Player Awards
* Club Goalkeeper of the Year:
Petr Čech
Petr Čech (; born 20 May 1982) is a Czech former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He also plays semi-professional ice hockey as a goaltender for Chelmsford Chieftains. Described by numerous players, pundits and managers as ...
(
Chelsea
Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to:
Places Australia
* Chelsea, Victoria
Canada
* Chelsea, Nova Scotia
* Chelsea, Quebec
United Kingdom
* Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames
** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...
)
* Club Defender of the Year:
Paolo Maldini
Paolo Cesare Maldini (; born 26 June 1968) is an Italian former professional footballer who played primarily as a left back and centre back for AC Milan and the Italy national team. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest defenders of a ...
(
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
)
* Club Midfielder of the Year:
Clarence Seedorf
Clarence Clyde Seedorf (; born 1 April 1976) is a Dutch professional football manager and former player. He is regarded by many to be one of the best midfielders of his generation.
Seedorf is considered one of the most successful players in UE ...
(Milan)
* Club Forward of the Year:
Kaká (Milan)
* Club Footballer of the Year:
Kaká (Milan)
Statistics
Statistics exclude qualifying rounds.
Top goalscorers
*
Source
Top Scorers – Final – Wednesday 23 May 2007 (after match)
''(accessed 23 May 2007)''
Top assists
Source:
See also
*
2006–07 UEFA Women's Cup
The UEFA Women's Cup 2006–07 was the sixth edition of the UEFA Women's Cup football club tournament (since rebranded as the UEFA Women's Champions League). 43 teams from 42 football associations took part, starting with the first qualifying round ...
References
External links
2006–07 All matches – season at UEFA websitea
uefa.com*
* All scorers 2006–07 UEFA Champions League (excluding qualifying round) according t
+ all scorer
nbsp;– results and line-ups (archive)
{{DEFAULTSORT:2006-07 Uefa Champions League
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UEFA Champions League seasons